Catapult Aircraft: Seaplanes That Flew From Ships Without Flight Decks

CATAPULT AIRCRAFT

Aircraft of the Mediterranean Fleet Catapult Flight in 1936. In the foreground are two Seagull V/Walrus aircraft, with three Fairey IIIFs and a Hawker Osprey on their port side, and three more Ospreys stepped up behind them. FAA Museum

CATAPULT AIRCRAFT

Seaplanes That Flew From

Ships Without Flight Decks

Leo Marriott

First published in Great Britain in 2006 by

Pen & Sword Aviation

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

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Copyright © Leo Marriott, 2006

ISBN 1 84415 419 X

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Contents

Introduction

Early Naval Aviation

Manned flight in heavier than air flying machines became a practical reality with the Wright brothers’ first faltering flights in December 1903. The brothers were always aware of the military possibilities of their invention, but it took some time to convince the US Army and consequently there was something of a hiatus in aeronautical development. In the meantime, the US Navy also looked at the possibility of using aeroplanes at sea and at the end of 1908 the Secretary of the US Navy received a report from Rear Admiral W. S. Cowles, which set out the possible uses of aircraft for observation and scouting missions. It was recommended that funds should be set aside to purchase some examples for evaluation.

Meanwhile, spurred on by reports of the Wright brothers’ success, European pioneers, particularly in France, sought to build their own machines. On 25 July 1909 Louis Blériot completed the first successful crossing of the English Channel by an aeroplane, an event that was hailed at the time as proving that Britain was no longer an island in military terms. It was also a Frenchman, Henri Fabre, who achieved the first flight in a seaplane, this event occurring at Martigues near Marseilles on 28 March 1910. However, the most significant event in that year, as far as naval aviation was concerned, occurred on the other side of the Atlantic, where the first flight was made from the deck of a warship. Piloted by Eugene Ely, the aircraft was a Curtiss pusher design, that was flown off a specially constructed platform erected over the bows of the cruiser USS Birmingham while the ship was at anchor in Hampton Roads, Virginia. The aircraft was not equipped with floats and therefore landed ashore at nearby Willoughby Spit. Encouraged by this successful demonstration, Ely then carried out further demonstrations, culminating in a landing aboard the cruiser USS Pennsylvania whilst at anchor in San Francisco Bay. In less than an hour he took off again and returned to his original departure point, Selridge Field, San Francisco.

A Curtiss A-1 flown by Eugene Ely made the first ever take-off from a warship on 14 November 1910. The ship was the cruiser USS Birmingham, which had a temporary 83 ft flight deck erected over the forecastle. US Navy Historical Branch

In Britain, development of aircraft for naval purposes was initially overshadowed by the effort put into the building of airships, notably the unsuccessful Mayfly I, although subsequent craft were more successful and by 1918 there were almost 100 in service. As far as aircraft were concerned, the first Royal Navy (RN) officer to take off in a floatplane was Lieutenant-Commander O. Schwann using an Avro Type D floatplane on 18 November 1911, but the flight was not a complete success as he crashed on landing ashore. The honour of the first British water landing went to Lieutenant (later Air Chief Marshal) Arthur Longmore, using a Short S.27 seaplane on the River Medway in Kent. Things progressed on 10 January 1912 when Lieutenant Charles Rumney Samson became the first British pilot to fly from a ship, emulating Ely’s earlier accomplishment in America. He successfully flew a Short S.38 from a platform sited over the fore turret and bow of the battleship HMS Africa off the Isle of Grain. Although a landplane and not equipped with floats, the S.38 was fitted on this occasion with temporary flotation bags to guard against a possible ditching. In this first attempt the ship was at anchor, but on 9 May 1912 he repeated the feat from the battleship HMS Hibernia whilst the ship was underway at 15 knots during a Naval Review off Weymouth.

The first British pilot to fly off a ship was Lieutenant Samson RN, on 10 January 1912, taking off from a platform over the bows of the battleship HMS Africa in a Short S.27 pusher biplane. FAA Museum

In the meantime, the US Navy moved a further step ahead when a Curtiss A-1 Triad ‘hydroaeroplane’ was launched by catapult from an anchored ship at Washington Navy Yard on 12 November 1912. By the end of the year the US Navy had also carried out trials to test the possibility of spotting submerged submarines from the air. Despite the fact that these trials were conducted over the relatively muddy waters of Chesapeake Bay, some success was achieved and it was expected that better results would be obtained in clearer offshore waters. This was the earliest example of aircraft being used in the anti-submarine role, a task that was to become vital in both subsequent world wars.

The outbreak of war in August 1914 inevitably accelerated the development of naval aviation. By that time the Royal Navy had already established a chain of coastal seaplane and airship stations and had carried out experiments with the dropping of a lightweight torpedo from an aircraft in flight. In December 1914 a converted collier entered service as the Royal Navy’s first seaplane carrier and reintroduced a famous name after a gap of almost 400 years, being commissioned as HMS Ark Royal. Subsequently, more ambitious conversions of faster cross-channel ferries were carried out between 1914 and 1917, and also of the Cunard liner Campania (12,950 grt). Three of these (Empress, Riviera and Engadine) participated in the first bombing attack by shipboard aircraft on Christmas Day 1914 when seven Short seaplanes attacked the German port of Cuxhaven. In the Mediterranean, a Short 184 from the seaplane carrier Ben-My-Chree (2,651 tons) carried out the first successful aerial torpedo attack, sinking a Turkish freighter off the Dardenelles on 12 August 1915. In the following year another Short 184 from the seaplane carrier Engadine made the first sighting of the German High Seas Fleet on 31 May and passed details by radio to the parent ship. Unfortunately, this vital intelligence was wasted as Engadine was unable to pass the message on to Jellicoe’s flagship due to problems with the ship’s wireless equipment.

HMS Campania was a typical First World War seaplane carrier. FAA Museum

Initially, the seaplane carriers could only launch their aircraft by stopping and lowering them into the water by crane. When the aircraft landed, on completion of their flight, the ship again had to slow down or stop in order to lift the aircraft aboard. Such limitations placed severe tactical restrictions on the use of aircraft at sea and one of the earliest developments was to fit the ships with a flying-off deck over the bows. The seaplanes were mounted on wheeled trolleys that were jettisoned after take-off. This allowed aircraft to be flown off while the ship was underway, but the method of recovery remained the same. In an effort to overcome this limitation, Squadron Commander E. H. Dunning flew a Sopwith Pup landplane fighter off the flying deck that had been installed over the bows of the converted battlecruiser HMS Furious. After making a circuit, he approached up the port side of the ship, which was underway at 26 knots, and side-slipped in front of the bridge before alighting gently onto the forward deck, where handlers were ready to grab specially fitted toggles attached to the wing-tips. This momentous event occurred on 17 August 1917. Unfortunately, Dunning was killed a few days later when his engine failed on take-off during further trials, but the feasibility of landing an aircraft aboard a moving ship had been clearly demonstrated and a substantial effort was made to take advantage of this type of operation. HMS Furious herself was subsequently modified by the addition of a landing deck aft of the funnel, but the first true aircraft carrier with a full-length flush deck was HMS Argus. This utilised the hull of the uncompleted Italian liner Conte Rosso and the ship was commissioned in September 1918, just in time to see a couple of months’ wartime service before the Armistice was signed in November 1918. Her initial air group consisted of twelve Sopwith Cuckoo torpedo-bombers and eight Sopwith Camel fighters, a very potent striking force for the time. With the coming of peace, Argus served as a trials ship for several ideas and innovations that were progressively incorporated in the subsequent carriers, including the purpose-built HMS Hermes (which introduced the now conventional island superstructure offset to starboard), HMS Eagle converted from a requisitioned Chilean battleship and the Courageous and Glorious. The last two were originally sister ships to HMS Furious, which was also converted into a proper aircraft carrier with full-length flight deck.

While much effort was put into the development of a ship whose sole purpose was the carriage and operation of aircraft, the gradual realisation of the valuable work that aircraft could carry out led to a parallel effort to enable conventional warships to operate aircraft. HMS Yarmouth was the first Royal Navy cruiser to be fitted with an aircraft platform. This was a fixed structure before the bridge, but her sister HMAS Sydney was fitted with a type of rotating platform, which was subsequently fitted to other ships of the class. The aircraft was normally a Sopwith Camel or Pup single-engined fighter and it was one of the latter flown off HMS Yarmouth by Flight Sub-Lieutenant B. A. Smart that succeeded in shooting down a Zeppelin L23 off the Danish coast on 21 August 1917. As a result of this success the Admiralty decided that each light-cruiser squadron should include at least one aircraft-equipped ship. Although the fighters gave the fleet an element of organic air defence, their operations were necessarily limited as the aircraft were not float-equipped and had to ditch at the end of their flight unless within reach of a land base. Flotation bags were fitted and these at least kept the ditched aircraft afloat until the pilot could be rescued. It also became policy for capital ships to be equipped with flying-off platforms mounted atop the main armament gun turrets. By 1918, most of the larger capital ships in the Grand fleet had two such platforms and carried a Pup or Camel for air defence and a two-seater for scouting and observation. At one stage it was estimated that the Grand Fleet had over 100 aircraft embarked, apart from those on aircraft and seaplane carriers. This total included forty-nine fighters and seventeen two-seaters aboard battleships, eleven fighters and six two-seaters aboard the battlecruisers, and another sixteen two-seaters embarked on cruisers. After the War, these platforms were retained for a while, but by the early 1920s they were being removed from those ships still in commission. The main reasons for this were the limited operational capabilities of such aircraft and, more importantly, the commissioning of new aircraft carriers allowed aviation activities to be concentrated aboard them. Carrier-based aircraft could carry out scouting, observation and reconnaissance tasks as well as the attack, strike and air-defence roles.

However, it was realised that there was still a need for individual warships to carry one or more aircraft when they were operating away from carrier-based air support and it was in the early 1920s that development of a satisfactory and reliable catapult system came about. This enabled battleships and cruisers to carry seaplanes that could be launched by catapult while the ship was underway and methods were developed that allowed aircraft to be recovered after alighting on the water without the parent ship having to stop. All of the major navies adopted this system for their major warships built between the wars. The United States Navy went to great lengths to ensure that their battleships and cruisers carried an adequate complement of aircraft in keeping with their requirement to conduct naval operations across the vast Pacific Ocean. Japan was also very quick to employ aircraft aboard warships and went on to become perhaps the major user of catapult seaplanes, particularly in the later stages of the Second World War when their carrier strength had been severely depleted. In Europe, the Italian and French navies deployed aircraft aboard cruisers and some of their battleships, but here the operational requirement was less as their ships, operating in the Mediterranean, could usually count on shore-based air support. However, France had extensive overseas colonies and consequently was perhaps more air-minded, converting a former battleship to an aircraft carrier and building a dedicated seaplane carrier of a type unique amongst European navies. German naval development was initially restricted by the provisions of the Versailles Treaty, but after Hitler came to power these were shrugged off and a powerful and well balanced fleet was planned, although war intervened before this could come to fruition. Nevertheless the Kreigsmarine was able to draw on extensive experience with the operation of seaplanes both during and after the First World War and with a prime role of attacking British trade routes on the high seas, all of its new cruisers and capital ships were designed to carry aircraft. The types of seaplanes developed and operated by all navies are described in this book, together with the facilities installed aboard ships and the effect that the provision of such facilities had on the design of ships.

The battleship HMS Warspite in 1918 with Sopwith 1½ Strutters positioned on flying platforms atop B and X turrets. The 1½ Strutter can be regarded as the Royal Navy’s first multi-purpose aircraft, being used in the fighter, bomber and scouting roles. Author’s Collection

Landing a seaplane in rough weather was no picnic. One technique, demonstrated here by the battleship HMS Anson, was for the parent ship to turn through the wind, creating a slick of smooth water on which the aircraft could alight. The ship’s Walrus is just touching down. FAA Museum

Shipboard catapult aircraft remained in widespread use almost up to the end of the Second World War by which time developments such as radar and the increased availability of aircraft carriers large and small, at least to the Allied navies, reduced their importance. Most of the traditional floatplane tasks were better carried out by higher-performance carrier-based aircraft, although a notable exception was the rescue of downed aircrew. However the death knell of the catapult aircraft was the helicopter, which became operationally viable by the end of the Second World War. At that time only the United States Navy amongst the major navies continued to deploy catapult aircraft, which lingered on until the late 1940s aboard some battleships and cruisers, although some smaller navies deployed one or two aircraft well into the 1950s.

After touching down, the Walrus taxies quickly alongside the ship while the latter is still underway, so that the crane cable can be hooked on ready to hoist the aircraft aboard. FAA Museum

When embarked, catapult aircraft performed a number of roles, although not every seaplane was able to do all of these and most types were optimised for specific duties. The most frequent tasks were as follows:

Spotting for ships gunfire (Observation)

Reconnaissance of enemy ports and harbours

Searching for enemy forces or individual ships at sea (Scouting)

Attacking enemy vessels

Anti-submarine patrols

Convoy escort

Air-Sea Rescue (including searches for survivors)

Transport of personnel

Inter-ship liaison

Admiral’s barge.

Glossary

CHAPTER 1

British and Commonwealth

Navies

The use of catapults by the Royal Navy had been considered prior to 1914, but the idea was initially rejected and the use of flying-off platforms was pursued instead when it became necessary to deploy aircraft aboard ships of the fleet. By 1916 the Admiralty reconsidered the idea in the light of American progress in this field and issued a specification for a shipboard catapult capable of accelerating a 5,700 lb (2.5 ton) aircraft to a speed of 60 mph within a travel of 60 ft. A maximum acceleration of 2.5 g was stipulated. Ultimately, two types of catapult were ordered and one manufactured by the Tyneside engineering conglomerate Armstrong Whitworth was installed aboard a converted steam hopper (a type of dredging vessel). This work was carried out at the company’s shipyards on the River Tyne, where preliminary trials with dummy loads were carried out. The ship was then commissioned as HMS Slinger and sailed south to join the Marine Experimental Aircraft Depot on the Isle of Grain for tests with live aircraft. These were conducted under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel H. R. Busteed, who also did most of the flying, including the all-important first successful launch from a ship on 18 June 1918. In passing, it should be noted that a second catapult had also been ordered and this was set up and tested at Hendon aerodrome, where the first British catapult launches using landplanes were carried out a few months earlier.

The aircraft selected for the ship trials was the Fairey N.9, which had been built the